


Show Your Hand

by hawberries



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, M/M, a distinct absence of gay panic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-08
Updated: 2013-02-08
Packaged: 2017-11-28 14:49:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/675601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawberries/pseuds/hawberries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick spells it out for Wally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Show Your Hand

**Author's Note:**

> Set after _Coldhearted_. Originally posted to Tumblr 19/April, 2012.
> 
> everything I touch turns to embarassing shipping and I'm still really sorry.

"You seriously had no idea.”

Wally felt himself flush. “Shut up, man. I’m not good with subtle things, okay?”

“Okay,” said Dick agreeably, “except that it wasn’t subtle.”

Wally groaned and leaned back into the sofa. No; in retrospect, it really wasn’t, and he was kicking himself for missing the thousand little clues he _should’ve_ picked up on, but. Miss Martian was really hot.

“She never said anything,” he protested; it was a feeble argument, and he knew it. Dick apparently felt the need to remind him anyway, by tilting his head so that his sunglasses slid just far enough down his nose to expose his disdainful expression. 

“She shouldn’t _have to._ ” 

“Get off my back, man,” Wally mumbled, frowning slightly. As if he didn’t feel bad enough. 

“You need a crash-course in nonverbal communication,” Dick informed him, pushing on. “Lesson 1: if she pulls faces every time you drop a line, they may not be working. Remove head from ass, then proceed.” 

"Jesus Christ! Fine, you got me, I’m bad at picking up signals,” said Wally loudly, throwing his arms up. “Congratulations! You cracked that one wide open, Mr. I-Was-Trained-By-Batman. My nonverbal vocabulary is so pathetic I need everything to be spelled out for me or I just won’t get it. Okay?” 

Dick fell silent. His glasses had obscured his eyes again, but the corner of his mouth tightened. Wally paused, deflating. Did he say something he shouldn’t have? He ran through his sentences. Surely not—it was his own fault for pressing the damn issue, anyway— 

Dick plucked off his glasses, turned, and pressed a soft kiss to the side of Wally’s mouth. 

Wally’s heart stopped. 

The world fell silent and Wally registered: that Dick’s mouth was very warm, and his hand, too, where it gripped at Wally’s shoulder. His eyes were closed, his lashes dark, his face a little pinker than usual. Wally struggled to blink. Was Dick still there? Had a lifetime not passed since he first leaned forward? 

Wally counted seconds, hours, quite possibly days before Dick sat back. His eyes fluttered open. Wally tried to breathe and couldn’t, and perhaps that was why he felt so light-headed. 

“I like you,” said Dick, steady and perfectly put-together; his eyes were burningly, ridiculously, almost offensively blue. “I would like to date you. “ 

_Oh_ , said some part of Wally’s brain, though his ears were ringing. _Okay. That seems reasonable._

Dick. Spry, cheerful, frustrating Dick, who grinned as though he always kept a secret. Thirteen-year-old Dick, his _best friend_ Dick. Dick, whom he trusted—and who trusted him—more than anyone else. 

Dick liked him—wanted to date him—had just _kissed him on the mouth—_

“If you don’t—it’s okay if you don’t feel the same,” Dick , and for the first time a quaver entered his voice. “But if this is the only way I can put it on the table—” 

Wally wanted to pause the world. He had to think—he couldn’t. Maybe he could get by without thinking. He really wished his respiratory system would start working again. He was going to pass out. The side of his mouth tingled; it burned. 

Dick dropped his gaze, and that sudden absence of blue made Wally realise that he was still staring. 

“Um,” Dick muttered, and shifted, and made to leave the couch. Wally’s heart thundered back into action, but pumped ice instead of blood. What— 

“S—sorry,” said Dick; “I, we, you can pretend that never happened if you want, or, we can talk, later—I—sorry—” 

Wally lunged across the couch, caught Dick by the arm, hauled him forward and kissed him. He stubbed his mouth on his own front teeth and their noses knocked together, but he could see Dick’s eyes again, wide with shock, and feel Dick's mouth warm and damp under his own, and— 

Dick made a small noise so Wally jerked back, heart hammering. Words, his brain advised. He should say some of them. 

“Don’t be sorry,” he managed. “Uh. You just caught me by surprise, that’s all.” He paused, then added, “don’t be sorry,” a second time, for prosperity. 

Dick was blinking at him as if in disbelief, but—Wally thought—a little in hope, too. 

“You don’t mind?” 

“No," Wally babbled, "I’m actually surprisingly cool with it. I mean, we’re best friends, so for a sec there I thought it might be weird, but. We survive Batman on a weekly basis, I figure we’ll survive a date or two, at least—” he forced his mouth shut. These were _not good words_. 

Dick stared a moment longer, then—bewilderingly, ridiculously, _snorted_. How he managed to be so scathingly bratty while pink in the face Wally would never guess. 

“I guess that’s a yes to the dating thing,” said Dick. 

He could say something bitingly clever. “Yeah,” he said, instead. Dick burst out grinning, beaming with sudden warmth like a match being struck. 

“Sweet,” he said; “mind if I kiss you again?” 

“I—” Wally started, and then smiled, and then couldn’t stop smiling. “Go ahead.” 


End file.
